


Absolute Beginners

by Darby_Harper



Series: Mad Mad World [4]
Category: Rammstein
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 16:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10768461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darby_Harper/pseuds/Darby_Harper
Summary: Something's afoot and might bode good or evil for the band and those around them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Any similarity between the fictional version of the person portrayed here and the actual person is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction. This is not an attempt to defame the character of said person on the basis of libel, as the work is FICTIONAL (and NOT an intently false statement created with the express purpose of misleading others about the actual character of said person). All rights reserved.**

:::

The late afternoon sun burned hot down onto the concrete pad that surrounded a huge swimming pool. Sunlight glittered on the water’s surface, throwing rainbows everywhere and drawing the eye to the cool, clear water. Save for one woman clad in a scarlet bikini, bright copper-red hair pulled up into a high ponytail, stretched out under an umbrella, there was no one else about to disturb the water or the birds that were singing happily in a nearby tree. For all that the season was a couple of days away from the beginning of Autumn, the day itself was unusually hot and humid.

Once upon a time, Arielle Landers wouldn’t have heard the woman crossing the shiny, heat-waved concrete between the hotel’s lush lawn and the pool, but thanks to the Changeling’s virus she had gotten from her husband, Paul, she could clearly hear the woman’s breathing as well as her soft footfalls. Peering over her sunglasses, she saw Lilly gingerly crossing the hot sidewalk, finally giving up and walking through the much cooler grass. She waved at Lilly and called, “I do hope you’re not in your bare feet!”

Lilly picked up one of the smaller loungers and carried it over to park herself under Arielle’s umbrella before replying. “I have these thick-soled hiking sandals on and my feet are still getting cooked!” She held her feet out to show off the sturdy, multi-strapped sandals that looked like they would have kept her feet cool. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in weather this hot in my life!”

“Paul and I went to Hawai’i a couple years ago and he went running down from our hotel room onto this lovely black sand beach that was about a stone’s throw from the bedroom door. I tried to stop him but he didn’t hear me in time. You can guess how fast he ran to get back to cooler ground!” Arielle laughed. Lilly snort-laughed and said, “And screaming all the way, am I right?”

“Well, not quite screaming but he was swearing something fierce,” Arielle laughed, remembering Paul’s indignant expression when she’d told him that the sand was quite hot until the sun went down and that he’d have to wait awhile to get into the warm ocean. “I figured I'd come down here for a bit and get some sun while Paul was out. I might go swimming later but I'm too cosy to get up and move.”

Lilly sighed and rested her head on the lounger’s padded headrest. “I’m so tired it’s not funny. I’m all caught up on the paperwork I have to keep up for the boys but the paperwork to get my house sold is driving me apeshit. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, I’ve heard a lot worse,” Arielle replied, fanning herself with the book she’d been reading. “So, you’re really going to move to Germany. Paul said you had your reasons but that it was your story to tell and he wasn’t going to say a word. If it’s not too personal, can I ask?”

Lilly looked away for a moment, fiddling with the end of her braided ponytail before replying. “You probably know that Richard and I were kidnapped by a guy I used to work with, right?” When Arielle nodded, she said, “Before he got his hands on Richard, he kept me locked up in his basement for about five months. He was a delusional psychopath who thought I was in love with him and when I punched him in the face for not leaving me alone after I’d asked nicely several times, he blew his lid and kidnapped me. And...other...things.”

Arielle felt the blood drain from her face; a tiny bit of Lilly’s memories she had gotten from Paul were flavored with overwhelming fear, pain and shame. “Oh…oh dear God. No.”

Lilly nodded, staring down at the ground beneath her feet. “He raped me multiple times. If that wasn’t bad enough, he got me pregnant. Thank heaven I lost it, I can only imagine how fucked up it would have been. Between that, the infection that set in after I lost it and stress, I had to have a hysterectomy. Even I’d wanted children, I can’t. I’m very thankful Richard doesn’t want any more either.”

“You poor…oh Lilly,” Arielle said, shedding towel and book to spring out of her seat and hug her. “I’m so very sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

Lilly returned the hug, saying, “It’s all right. I’m coming to terms with everything. The miscarriage, I got over relatively quickly. The…assaults? Not so much. Guess that makes me a weaking.”

“No it does _not!_ ” Arielle snapped, pushing Lilly backwards so she could look her straight in the eye. “You lived through something horrible. You were able to heal your soul and heart up enough to fall in love with Richard. How many people could say that? And you protected him, am I not right?”

Lilly nodded. “I tried. I’d give up everything if he never had to go through that mess in the first place. I begged…him…to let Richard go, to take all of his anger out on me but I might as well have talked to a brick wall. He was so convinced that Richard working outside of Rammstein meant the band was breaking up that nothing either of us said made a difference. When Richard stood up to him, he got the living shit beaten out of him.”

“You did what you could and you were braver than anyone could be in that situation,” Arielle said quietly. “I’m sure you’ve had everyone and their dog tell you that, but I think you need to hear it again. _None_ of that was your fault. You are not a weakling, and there's nothing wrong if you can only deal with some of that trauma a little bit at a time.”

When Lilly shrugged her shoulders and looked away, obviously ashamed, Arielle shook her gently and said, “You saved my husband’s life. You saved the lives of five other people he cares deeply about, as do I. They can be a pain in the ass but in the end, they’re part of family. And no matter what happens or doesn’t happen between you and Richard, in the end, you’re part of _my_ family as well.”

Lilly blinked away the hot tears that were threatening to fall. “I’m tired of being strong all the time, Ari. Some days I feel like if I don’t stay busy from the time I wake up till the time I fall asleep, all those bad memories are going to drown me. I’ve come close to going completely insane twice and it scares me so much that the second I let my guard down, I’ll be lost.”

“Oh Lilly…” Arielle sighed, hugging her again. “Have you talked to someone about this? You’re not dealing with this on your own.”

“I was,” Lilly replied, settling down on her chair and pulling her legs up to her chest. “When the tour started I wasn’t able to schedule any appointments with my doctor that lined up with our days off. I’ve been trying but so far, I haven’t had any luck. I was doing okay. Well, as okay as you can be if you’re like we are. I’m sure if I’d told my therapist I was psychic, among other things, we wouldn’t be having this conversation outside of a mental hospital.”

“Well, I’m not sure how much help I can give you but I’ll be glad to listen whenever you need to talk,” Arielle said as she sat down on the foot of the lounger Lilly was curled up on. “And I mean it. Even if you have to call me in the middle of the night, please do it.”

Lilly dropped her head onto her folded arms, her entire body shaking as she tried to hold back the tears. Arielle patted her foot and murmured through the link _**::It’s okay. I won’t let anyone bother you. Go ahead and get it out::**_

_**::Thank you Ari. I don’t want to break down in front of Reesh like this, he’d fall over himself trying to comfort me and not freak out. He worries far too much about me::** _

_**::You need someone to worry about you, sweetheart. Let it all out,**_ _ **liebling**_ _ **. You don’t have to be everyone’s guardian angel all the time::**_ Arielle said, sliding an arm around Lilly shoulders so she could rest her head on the other woman's shoulder, and Lilly cried until she had no more tears to cry. Before long, Lilly was nodding her head sleepily; Arielle smiled over at her and said, “If you want to take a nap, I’ll keep you company.” She waited until Lilly was settled comfortably in her own chair, and then draped her towel over the other woman’s legs to keep the sun from them.

“If you weren't dead already, you bastard,” Arielle growled to herself as she watched Lilly sleep, “I'd find you and kill you myself, inch by inch.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

::::

 

“If there’s one thing I can’t stand about touring it’s _this_ ,” Flake complained, waving angrily at the piles of wires, heavy cables and various bits of electronic equipment that littered the floor around him. “I’ve been doing this for _how_ long and all of a sudden management thinks I need a new tech because mine’s halfway back to Russia and I can’t put my own equipment together? For fuck’s sake!”

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” Paul said, holding up his hands. “All I heard was Alexi had a family emergency and had to fly home as soon as he could get a flight back to Moscow. Ollie told me about the new tech only because he all but ran over him backstage. You think _I’m_ short? This guy’s a Hobbit!”

Flake growled, irritated, and hopped down from where his keyboards were half-assembled. “I can do this myself, Paul! We’re almost done with this half of the tour and now I have to go and break a new guy in?”

“I’m sorry I’m late,” came a voice from Paul’s right. He turned halfway to see the tech he’d been speaking of rushing across the stage, a handful of cables over one shoulder and a laptop under one arm. He came to a sharp halt in front of Flake, nodded to him and Paul and said, “I’m Jason Mills. I apologize for being a few minutes late, like I said. Emu was getting me brought up to speed on what needs to be done before rehearsal starts, so if I’m not in the way…”

Flake looked the man up and down with a critical eye and said, “Not a problem. I was halfway through getting everything set up myself, do you want to see where I left off?”

“Sure. I can see from here you’ve got most of the patch cables where they need to go…” Jason replied as Flake led him to his set up. Paul shook his head, amused at how Flake was behaving himself and wandered over to see what Richard, Ollie and Till were doing. Ollie was showing Richard something on his iPhone and Till was stretched out on the top of a speaker case, one arm draped over his eyes. Paul grabbed a folding chair as he walked towards the trio and once he was within normal speaking distance, said, “Remind me once again why we like touring?”

“We do but we don’t. But it pays the bills,” Till said. “Did Flake scare his new tech off yet?”

“Nope. Of course he’s behaving himself at the moment but that could change,” Paul replied, settling down next to Richard and Ollie. “I don’t blame him one bit but...well. We have about twenty minutes before we need to get started on sound check, I estimate. Where’s Schneider?”

“Schneider is right here,” came their drummer’s voice from behind the road case Till was lying on. “I’m doing stretches like _someone_ is supposed to be doing but he’s too intent on watching silly cat videos on the Internet.”

“I did my stretches already, my dear Christoph,” Richard replied, tossing an empty water bottle over the speaker case in Schneider’s general direction. He fielded it without looking and sent it right back at Richard, who caught it and threw it in a recycling bin. “Lilly threatened me with a shoe to the skull if I didn’t do them. And we’re not watching cat videos. At the moment.”

Schneider popped up from behind the case and snorted. “Our fans would collectively shit themselves if they saw us watching cat videos. We’re supposed to be evil and all that, we cannot watch cute kitten video. It’s _just not done_.”

Paul shook his head and laughed. “Yeah, well, there’s a lot of things we do now that’s 'just not done.' I’m tuned up and ready to go; Reesh, Ollie, Schneider, you want to go over that middle eight section in “Los” that I keep muddling up while we wait?”

As the four men turned to head backstage to practice, Till yawned hugely and flopped back onto the road case. “I’m going to lie here and nap. Wake me up when we’re ready to go again.”

“Didn’t you sleep last night?” Schneider asked as he stood up and slid around the road case. “Or was there some little beauty keeping you up?”

“I wish. No, between my writer’s block finally coming unstuck and answering some e-mails I’ve been ignoring, I didn’t get to bed till shortly around seven. Fucking birds singing their heads off outside my window woke me up an hour later and I never really went back to sleep. I’m fine, I’ll catch up tonight,” Till sighed. “If things were different I’d be a zombie.”

“Don’t worry Sleeping Beauty, we’ll come get you when we’re ready,” Paul teased. Till waved a hand to shoo him away and was almost instantly asleep again, despite the rising noise level all around. Ollie shook his head as he dropped down from the main stage to a small area behind it where the four of them could rehearse without being in anyone’s way. Schneider was already there with Paul and Richard, keeping time by tapping his drumsticks on a piece of lighting truss that wasn’t being used. Dropping his bass guitar strap over his head, Ollie leaned in and said, “I’ll keep an ear out for Flake or someone yelling for us to get back on stage. Now, what are we doing?”

_**::At the moment, we’re hiding::**_ Schneider said as Paul explained to Richard what he’d been having trouble with. _**::There’s a few people out in the arena that Flake says don’t feel ‘right’ to him, so he’s keeping that new tech busy and behaving to keep their attention off of the rest of us. I’m not bothering Till, he’s loopy when he’s exhausted. That tech sets off my collywobbles but I can’t put my finger on why::**_

_**::Same here::**_ Paul chimed in while following Richard’s directions. None of them gave a second thought any more to the multitasking they were able to do and in times like these, they were quite glad to have the skills. _**::I bumped into him on the way up here and he’s all closed off. I didn’t think normal people could do that::**_

_**::And why’s that?::**_ Till chimed in. _**::Not evolved enough?::**_

_**::No. Most humans couldn’t handle being like we are now.**_ Flake said. _ **If your average person woke up tomorrow with one of our talents, they’d go nuts. Why, I don’t know. Maybe we can because something’s off kilter in our heads. Whatever it is, it’s probably a good thing most people couldn’t handle this and these skills never develop. There’s been nights I’ve woken up scared to death that I’m able to talk to you all like this, I can touch something and tell you about the last person that touched it. Oh, and don’t be surprised if we start finding out we can do other things. I can sense that there’s more locked away in our heads, it’s just a matter of time before any of it shows up::**_

He was barely able to get out of the way when Schneider threw his drumsticks at Ollie and ran for the backstage door. The rest of the band shuddered at the sensation of being horribly sick and the wave of hot pain shooting through their heads that heralded the migraines Schneider got from time to time.

“What the hell is wrong with Schneider?” Till asked as he came down the stairs to see where their drummer had run off to.

“You know how his migraines develop, Till,” Paul said, easing his guitar over his head and setting it back in its stand. “He’s been upset about something the past couple of days and this must have been the last straw. Poor guy, I know he’s trying to keep from bothering any of us with it but every once in awhile he just can’t. Ari was sick this morning and the only way we knew she wasn’t pregnant again was that I’d been feeling sick the night before and it didn't take much to realize it was coming Schneider. He won’t tell me what’s going on and I wish he would.”

“He hasn’t said anything to me, either,” Flake said, sitting down on his haunches nearby. Ollie shook his head, saying, “I tried to pry it out of him the other night while we were playing Fallout and he shut me down faster than you can say boo. The only thing I got was that he’s upset so much nothing he does in his yoga practice is working. And you know if it’s doing that...”

“I’m fine, stop worrying about me, Ollie,” Schneider grumbled as he made an unsteady beeline for the bottom step of the staircase. Lowering himself down, carefully, he continued, “It’s just an upset stomach, okay? Chill, will you?”

Till leaned over and patted Schneider’s knee, saying, “All right, all right. We’ll leave you alone but promise that if you start getting worse, you’ll talk to Lilly. Good thing you won't have to try and describe what's going on, she can just take a look inside your head.”

Only Richard caught the look of alarm, shaded with more than a good bit of embarrassment that flickered across the drummer’s face. He nodded in agreement with Till, accepting his drumsticks back from Flake. Without saying a word, Schneider got up from his spot on the bottom step of the stairs and ran up onto the stage.

“What the...” Paul said, watching their drummer retreat behind his drum kit and shoving his monitors into his ears, ignoring the rest of the band. Knowing Schneider as well as he did, he knew his friend wasn’t going to say anything to anyone until he was good and ready, if ever. Shaking his head, Paul pulled his guitar from its stand and said, “It’s time to get started, I think.” No one spoke as they followed him up onto the stage, and nothing else was said about the incident the rest of the day. The sound check went well despite the delay, and by the end of it Schneider was his usual self, not a tiny bit of a sign as to how sick he’d been.

The twitchy feeling the band had about Flake’s new tech didn’t wane, however. It kept them all on edge the entire evening and despite the show going off swimmingly, they were all tired and tense by the end of the evening. Paul and Richard had taken Arielle and Lilly off to the side before the show to tell them what was going on; Lilly wore herself out trying to find a crack in the tech’s “walls” with Richard’s help.

“Stop it you two, you're both going to have awful headaches in the morning,” Arielle said at last, watching Lilly slide down the wall next to Richard, who had his knees pressed to his chest and head resting on them. They'd scouted out the empty conference room earlier in the evening and were using it now as a quiet space for Lilly and Richard to see if they could figure out what was going on with Flake's keyboard tech. Arielle laid her hand on Lilly’s sweat-soaked hair and said, “You’re going to run yourself ragged. I still don’t know much about what I can do but I can tell without any talents that you’re on your last legs. Richard, take this poor woman home, get her showered and to bed.”

Richard smiled up at Arielle, saying, “Yes mum, whatever you say, mum,” as he stood up from the floor, pulling Lilly with him. She sagged against him with a sigh, closing her eyes and whispering, “Thanks Ari. I think if you hadn’t said something I’d go until I was completely shot and that’s not good. I promise to go back to the hotel and right to bed.”

“And no fooling around either. Richard, for once, leave the poor woman alone. And get a shower, you reek,” Paul said as he tiptoed into the room, closing the heavy door behind him as softly as he could. “Yes, I know, sex is supposed to be good for you when you’re not feeling well but...”

“Yes Paulchen, no fooling around, whatever you say...” Richard teased, smacking his friend on the shoulder as he led a dizzy, drowsy Lilly out of the room. “Come on sweetheart, let’s get you out of here,” he said. Till, Flake, Schneider and Ollie were waiting for them and escorted them back to the hotel, providing both psychic and physical support, as Richard was as close to the end of his strength as he'd ever been.

Once they were alone, Paul swept Arielle into a passionate hug and kiss. “You’re so brave,” he murmured against her lips. “Everything I’ve thrown at you the past couple of days...”

“I love you, silly man. And I’m not so brave as you think. I’m just trying to be as logical as I can about suddenly becoming a person out of a comic book!” Arielle said, resting her head on Paul’s chest. “I’ll be all right. As long as I have you to lean on, I’ll be fine.”

“You will, my love, forever and ever,” Paul said, capturing Arielle’s lips again for another heated kiss. “Come on, let’s get out of this place. The night’s still young and I think I’d like to spend the rest of it making you howl my name at the top of your lungs.”

“I like the sound of that,” Arielle replied, dancing away from Paul’s hands and smacking him on the behind. He yelped and began to chase her out of the room and down the hall to his dressing room, where they slammed the door behind them. A few of the crew folk who were still finishing their post show tasks grinned at one another; Emu shook his head and said to no one in particular, “They're worse than rabbits in springtime.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

:::

The band had every right to be nervous about Flake’s new tech. Although he looked like your average computer nerd, Jason Mills had a secret. A very big, very scary secret, taped to his stomach with surgical tape. It wasn’t a bomb, but something as devastating. Something that could break through the carefully crafted web-work of shielding and bonds between the eight people that were now dead to the world asleep, something that could poke holes into their very souls and ferret out the information concealed deep in their hearts, bones and DNA.

Jason was stretched out in his bunk on one of the crew buses that sped along through the night to the next venue, typing madly away on an e-mail he’d begun earlier that evening. He was forgoing sleep to finish it but in his excitement, he didn’t care. He’d been close enough to the band to get more than enough information to send along to his supervisors, and he was hopeful that while he’d been ordered to only watch the band and not interfere with them at all, that he would get a chance to see what he could get from Richard’s red-headed girlfriend. She gave off an aura of _something_ that even a blind person could have seen, and it intrigued him.

And if it came down to it, he’d gladly sacrifice himself to protect the band and her. He'd read the reports that had come from the mad doctor's files, had seen the photographs of the dead bodies, and had come across some of the man's research that if he wasn't in the job he was in, he'd have put it down to the scribblings of a madman or a science-fiction writer. He'd been present when one of his superiors had tried to question Richard when he was in the hospital recovering from his ordeal. They'd sedated him heavily; while they hadn't been able to get much from him, what he'd said was enough to give Jason more than a few nightmares. Listening to Richard recount what he'd been though was difficult enough, that he did so in a very calm voice, as if it had happened to someone else, had been worse.

Jason was quite impressed at how strongly bonded to each other the band was, how they hadn't considered the dangers to themselves and had gone to rescue Richard on their own, and how, except for a few moments of doubt and fright, seemed to accept that they were now beings out of legend as par for the course. Once the e-mail was finished and sent out, Jason crawled under his blankets and tried to go to sleep. He was excited that his hard work was finally showing some results, but at the same time he was afraid that in his efforts to find out more about the band and Lilly, he would expose himself and the organization he worked for to the world.

And that would be a very, _very_ bad thing.

 


End file.
